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October 16, 2010

I'm not too sure why, but I find Domo-kun absolutely adorable. So, it was bound to happen that I'd bake something Domo-themed. In case you don't know who or what Domo-kun (どーもくん) is, he's the mascot of NHK, a Japanese TV station. He's a brown, fuzzy, rectangular creature with a perpetually open mouth who apparently hatched from an egg, and he appears in short stop-motion segments on NHK.

I got the idea to make some sort of Domo chocolate cookie, but it couldn't just be any old cookie. And then it hit me, why not Domo-fy TKOs? TKOs, Thomas Keller Oreos, are what I think of as a grown-up's Oreo. They're rich and decadent with salted chocolate wafers sandwiched around a creamy white chocolate ganache center. And so I did just that, giving a playful makeover to the fancy adult treat.

*Edited 1/30/2011: To all of you who want an alternative dough to work with, try Domo Icebox Cookies. The dough is easier to work with, and they aren't sandwich cookies. But, of course, they're equally cute!

To make the filling, bring the heavy cream to a boil. Remove from heat and add the white chocolate. Wait 1 minute, then whisk the chocolate and cream together until even. Then set it aside to let it thicken for 6 hours at room temperature or for less time in the fridge.

First for the brown colored dough, mix the flour, cocoa powder,sugar, baking soda, and salt together. Add the butter and incorporate it into the dry ingredients until it comes together as a dough. Gather it in a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for 10 minutes.

For the red dough, mix together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Incorporate the butter with a spatula and then add the food coloring, mixing just until no more red streaks remain. Gather the dough and refrigerate for 10 minutes.

Shaping the Dough

Take some of the brown dough and make it into a rectangular prism so that the short sides measure 1 1/4 x 3/4" and place it so the longer edge (1 1/4") is parallel with your table. Next take a red piece of dough and make a rectangular prism with 3/4 x 1/2" short sides. Center this red rectangular strip on top of your first brown one with the longer edge (3/4") touching the brown dough.

Then make two narrow rectangular prisms with the brown dough with the short sides measuring 3/4 x 1/4". Place them on both sides of the red rectangular piece of dough with the shorter edge (1/4") touching the brown base. Finally, make another brown rectangular prism with the short side measuring 3/4 x 1/4". Place that prism on top of the red prism and between the other two narrow brown prisms.

Now smooth away the lines between the dough pieces and round the corners of your large rectangular prism. I find it easier to repeat this whole process multiple times with all of the dough to ensure that the shape of the mouth doesn't get distorted by working with too much dough at once. Once finished, wrap the shaped dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate till firm, around 30 minutes.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F. Take the dough out from the fridge and slice it into 1/8-inch pieces, placing them onto parchment lined baking sheets. Bake them for 12 minutes. Let them cool on the sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack.

Once the cookies are totally cool, they can be filled. First pair up all your cookies by size. Only one cookie in each pair will need to be decorated (since the other cookie will be the bottom of the sandwich). Place the white chocolate ganache in a piping bag. Take one cookie from a pair and pipe a bit of filling in the center. Place the other cookie on top and carefully press the cookies together to spread out the filling to the edges. Repeat with the rest of the cookies.

Decorating Domo Cookies

bittersweet chocolate
black food coloring
white chocolate
toothpicks

Melt the bittersweet chocolate. Add a little bit of black food coloring and mix till evenly blended. Take a toothpick and dot on eyes on the cookies. Next, melt some white chocolate. Trace the top and bottom edge of the red mouth on the cookie with the white chocolate. Then make four teeth on the top edge and four teeth on the bottom edge of the cookie. Repeat with the rest of the cookies. Serve immediately, or if not, keep refrigerated so the cookies stay crisp and let return to room temperature when ready to serve.

Having lived in Japan let me assure you, you could make an absolute killing with a bakery that sold nothing but these cookies. AMAZINGLY cute. The instruction illustrations totally made this post, too. Phenomenal job!!

Just amazing. Totally gonna make this for my boyfriend and my friend for her birthday. They are totally in love with domo:) thank for the clear instructions. With some modifications, i think a christmas domo is totally possible too. :)By the way, wanted to clarify. For the teeth, do we pipe the four teeth on top on top of the previously drawn line, or do we form the teeth by using a toothpick to shape from the line? Thanks!

Bravetart: Thank you! That would be so cool, a bakery that sold only Domo cookies.

Rachel: You totally read my mind! I was totally contemplating a Christmas Santa Domo for December. The four teeth are in a step after the line. The line is used to cover up cleanly the division between the red and brown dough. I just realized that my image isn't too clear, thanks for asking!

fattydumpling: Thanks! I knew that there was black gel food coloring (needs to be ordered online or bought at a craft store), but I totally didn't know that some supermarkets have it as well. I found a bottle of Mccormick brand at Safeway if that helps.

Cindy. Lo. & Mr. P: Thank you :D.

kirbie: Thanks. I could totally see these being made by a machine though.

Damon & mal: Yeah, make them!

Anonymous: Yay :). Sorry to say that I have no idea how many it makes (definitely more than 15, possibly more than 20 as well)... I already ate a few before I realized that I needed to count how many there were... plus I made a bunch of heart cookies.

Paula: Paula!!! Long time no see! We should meet up and bake sometime in the future when you aren't working :). Hope your semester is going well too.

Found you through the Crafty Food Roundup at OnePrettyThing where two of my recipes were featured. WOW! These cookies are absolutely incredible! I need to bring something to my daughters' school's Halloween party. You know how it goes, once you bring something cool, they expect a show-stopper every time. Your domo cookies are just the perfect thing for me to bring! Thanks! I also shared a link with my readers on my FB fan page. Hope it brings you some new followers and some good bloggy mojo!

i LOVE this idea! i just tried making these right now and omg mine turned out so embarrassing compared to yours XDyour domos are so beautiful. i'm definitely going to have to try it again because they are way too cute

these are awesometacular!!! i was just wondering if i subed lemon juice and yellow and green food coloring if the recipe would turn out as i am not partial to chocolate...i know, i know whats wrong with me. thx again

Anonymous: Um... I don't really see that working. The main body dough uses cocoa powder, which keeps the dough dry. Without the cocoa powder, the dough won't hold its shape very well.

Instead, what I suggest is that you find a vanilla shortbread recipe (Google search), add food coloring to that, then follow my shaping and decorating instructions :). You could even use brown food coloring so it's still normal Domo color but not chocolate flavored :D.

Thank you so much for posting these! I just made these for a party with a lot of Japanese diplomats and everyone was impressed with how wonderful and creative these cookies and you are! Of course they're really tasty too!

I'm not sure why, but my dough ended up extremely dry (too dry to stay together). I ended up adding eggs and vanilla extract, which made them a little more like a butter cookie dough. They still turned out quite nicely though!

Making these for boyfriend today, thank you for such visual instructions! I just hope I don't manage to mess it up. :P The red dough took so much food coloring to get red enough it got so wet and squishy. ;¨¨¨; But I just added flour until it felt right. so I hope its good. xD

Anonymous 2: You could, but I would suggest not because without the filling, the cookies are rather salty. They need the sweet filling to balance out the saltiness. But, sometime in the next couple of weeks I'm going to post an alternative cookie recipe that can be used to make non-sandwich Domo cookies :). So keep an eye out for it.

Kimberly: Thanks for telling me about your baking; that sounds pretty cool! I've noticed the dryness before too. For me it happens when the butter is too cold, so it won't incorporate properly into the dry ingredients.

BellsInSpires: Thanks! Haha, I'll try :P.

Anji*: Thank you!

Anonymous 3: They should be able to stay fresh refrigerated in an airtight container for about a week. No, they don't taste like normal oreos. The baking time is indicated in the recipe above. The dough can be made in advanced and then refrigerated for a few days I guess? I'm not too sure.

tofugirl: As long as they're still tasty, it's all good.

Anonymous 4: Hopefully it turns out okay!

Anonymous 5: "T" stands for tablespoon.

M: Thanks! No, self-raising flour contains baking powder, not baking soda, so it can't be used to sub for all purpose flour. Baking powder and baking soda work differently.

THESE LOOK SO GOOD! ;OI hope this question isn't asked already [since I read through most of the comments], but how long does it take for the white chocolate to dry? I'm afraid it won't dry since I don't want them to smudge when I pack them! I've never used white chocolate before. :/ And you melt them before adding them to the heavy cream too, right? Oh and, when you buy the white chocolate, how does it look like? Is it a bar of chocolate? I don't want to buy the wrong one. xDSorry for the mass of questions, but one last one~ You mentioned above you made 15-20 domo cookies. Is that with the cream or no cream? P: Thanks again! (:

Going off what anonymous asked, it's chocolate and salty mixed with sweetness from the cream right? And both the Domo and the heart shaped cookies are salty? or only the Domo? Sorry for another question, but I would love to make these for Valentine's Day even though I'm asking a month ahead of time

Anonymous 1: For the white chocolate drying, I can't really answer that because it depends on how the weather is like where you live. If it's hot, then it'll take forever to dry. If you want to speed that up, you can place the domos on a cookie sheet and stick that in your fridge to chill and harden.

Yes, white chocolate comes in a bar; you can typically find it in the baking ingredient aisle near the chocolate chips. And no, for the filling, do not melt the white chocolate beforehand. It'll melt by itself when you add it to the cream. And 15-20 means with the filling.

Anonymous: I used neither; I usually make everything by hand. A Kitchen Aid isn't necessary at all. I only use the Kitchen Aid mixer for recipes that use high temperature liquids, like marshmallows, and the hand mixer for whipping cream or egg whites.

hi :)i would like to try making this cookies , but i just want to make a normal cookies without the filling :)but you said , this recipe will make the cookie salty , how can i make it not salty but sweet , because i don't want to make it as a sandwich cookies :)can i change the butter into a unsalted butter and add more sugar to the dough ? :)and what the small "t" means ? :)sorry for asking a lot of question :) and please answer my question :)i just love the idea ! <3a lot of thanks :)

Pey: Small t is teaspoon and big T is tablespoon. Both are baking measuring spoon sizes.

Anonymous 1: For a sweeter cookie, you can make Domo Icebox Cookies that I posted about in my Lion Icebox Cookie post. Those don't need filling.

Jeanee & cheesecakeerian: Thanks!

Anonymous: Is it because your dough is too soft? (I'm guessing from adding a lot of food coloring). You can try chilling your dough before shaping so it's firmer and easier to shape. Another tip is to flatten the dough to the right thickness and use a knife to cut it the correct width so that your sides will be perfectly straight.

Anna Lorraine: If you can melt them, they can be used instead of a bar. I used a bar of white chocolate because for some reason, I seem to have a hard time getting white chocolate chips to melt; they always just dry up when I try heating them :(.

Anonymous: I'm so glad to hear you like my pictures enough to want to use them as wallpaper! I will work to get them up at a higher resolution, but it might not be for some time, hopefully sometime in May or June, but definitely sometime this summer.

Linda: Yup, I used natural cocoa, because I felt that if I used dutch cocoa, the domos would be too dark and not domo-colored. I think the original TKO recipe does use dutch process cocoa, so either one is fine, it just depends on your preferences.

Anonymous: Oh gosh, I wish I knew. Near the end, I got too lazy to finish making Domos so I just used the rest of the dough to make hearts, so I don't actually know exactly. Sorry! I'm going to guess maybe around 25-30 Domo sandwiches?

Sorry to ask, but could you explain how the teeth is made? the instructions said that you need to pipe the white chocolate on the edge, as a horizontal line (top and bottom) but how do we shape it to get the triangle teeth? D;thanks!

J: After piping the line of white chocolate, take a toothpick and use it trace out the triangle teeth with more white chocolate. The line of chocolate is to create a neat border for the teeth and cover up the edge between the red and brown on the cookie.

Thanks for sharing such a cool inspiration! I made Domo-kun cookies using the ice box cookies recipe you shared on another post and came up with a slightly different way to shape the dough because it's really soft! They turned out really delicious and cute (though not as cute as yours, will need to practice more!) and my friends loved it (: Thank you so much!